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Below is the transcript of an interview we had with Dewald Botha, Chief Technology Officer of Tristar Medical Group, about how he and his team use ParkMyCloud to schedule servers according to the needs of their medical centers while drastically reducing AWS operational expenses.

Hi Dewald! Thanks for speaking with us. To start out, can you describe Tristar Medical Group to us, and what you and your team do within Tristar?

Tristar Medical Group provides high quality, accessible and affordable medical services to regional, rural and metropolitan areas in Australia. Tristar Medical Group is the largest privately owned health services provider in Australia with 53 medical clinics and service locations operating throughout Australia.

The Tristar IT team centrally manages the hybrid cloud infrastructure and deliver support to our clinics and users. I’m currently the CTO for Tristar Medical Group and oversee the strategic, technical and operational aspects of Tristar’s IT division.

How are you using the cloud at Tristar?

We utilize Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technology to deliver applications from our cloud servers to all our users, from administrative to health practitioners and Doctors. This allows us to deliver a high quality medical service to various regions where patient information and specialist reports are always available and accessible.

What challenges did you experience in using AWS prior to using ParkMyCloud?

Given the nature of our industry and business, providing continuity of care is very important. This meant we had to run servers which could be accessed all hours by our medical centers and GPs. The operational expense of running EC2 instances became quite a substantial expense for the organization given that we have multiple clinics, running across multiple time zones, with users accessing different servers.

With the increasing OpEx costs, we became aware that we had to scale down on servers and instances. This led us to two conclusions. Either spend a large amount of capital upfront to increase the efficiency of our VDI solution, or automate and fine-tune our AWS servers to maximize output.

Can you describe your experience so far using ParkMyCloud?

Thus far our experience with ParkMyCloud rates a 10 / 10. In our journey we trialed and tested a couple of schedule-like services, but none as easy to use and flexible as ParkMyCloud. Everyone in my team finds it incredibly straightforward to use and the core functionality complements our organizational needs completely.

What benefits has your company realized with ParkMyCloud?

Where to start! Using a combination of ParkMyCloud and geographical clusters, we managed to schedule our servers according to the needs of our medical centers. We can now facilitate our larger medical practices that operate for longer business hours, but we also have the ability to scale back during weekends and non-peak times. By utilizing this strategy we no longer have the need to run all our servers 100% of the time, reducing AWS operational expenses drastically.

On the servers we schedule, we currently calculate savings anywhere between 40% – 60%, depending on operational need. With the eventual migration of all our instances from our traditional datacenter to AWS we predict savings anywhere between $15k and $20k per month.

What other cloud cost-savings measures do you have in place?

We have upgraded aspects of our VDI environment to compliment the organizational requirements and geographical locations of users in order to maximize the efficient use of the AWS environment.

Do you use ParkMyCloud for user governance?

In short yes. As with the above answer we utilize a combination of our VDI environment, load balancing software, user and group policies alongside ParkMyCloud to ensure we reduce underutilization of shared services. Being in the medical industry, privacy and security is also a big concern for us. With the secure integration between ParkMyCloud to Amazon through IAM Policies, our IT team is confident that our data is safe and secure and that there is a secure division between what can be accessed or not.

Any other comments?

All in all we are extremely happy with the product and are excited to know what could be next on the roadmap. What has been exceptional, in an industry that is seemingly dominated by large corporates and interaction with nameless employees, is that every time I have been in contact with the team, you have all been forthcoming and attentive to any suggestions. Which is really great from a customer experience perspective.

Thanks again for chatting with us!

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About Katy Stalcup

Katy Stalcup is the Marketing Manager for ParkMyCloud, where she’s responsible for a wide variety of content development, campaigns, and events. Since ParkMyCloud's founding, she's evangelized its message of simple cost savings and automation (seriously, in the words of one of our customers, "There is literally no reason not to use ParkMyCloud"). Katy is a Northern Virginia native who is happy to contribute to the region’s growing reputation as an East Coast gathering point for technology innovation - particularly as a graduate of the Alexandria, VA Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. She also earned bachelor’s degrees in communication and psychology from Virginia Tech. In her free time, she enjoys reading novels, playing strategy board games, and travel both near and far.
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